6-year-old tries to find homes for foster kids

HIRAM, Ga. -- Foster care kids are often seen as damaged goods, a tragic byproduct of a failed family and state support system.

Six-year-old Hannah Daffron wants to challenge that image. She's a foster child who has found a "forever family" and wants to help other children do the same.

When Hannah was four, she entered a pageant. The judges asked what she wanted to be as an adult. Her answer? A foster mom "changing a child's life like my parents changed mine," she said.

Hannah was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. She had seizures and swelling of the brain. She spent her early years in physical, occupation and speech therapy.

Her foster mother, Jennifer Daffron, says the pageant helped Hannah deal with her fear of lights, crowds, and speaking to people. It also got her thinking. Why wait to grow up when she could help foster kids right now, by selling a very special calendar?

A photography studio, Captured by Cayla, donatedits time, taking pictures of children who had gone through the foster system and designing a calendar to help Hannah raise awareness.

Hannah then went to dozens of businesses raising $3,400 in sponsorship to print the calendars. Now she's selling them for $15. Some of the money will help her attend an "all-natural pageant" where she will compete with foster care as her platform, the other half will go to foster care services.

Mitzie Mitchell organizes a Christmas party through County Line Ruritan Club every year for about 150 children. It's one event Hannah hopes to help.

While Mitchell appreciates the money and the thought, she loves what the calendar represents even more.

"Happiness. You take the kids that have come into the foster care system with many problems and many issues and they don't have bonding yet and they get with families that give them the love and the bonding that they need and they turn out happy and normal," said Mitchell.

Hannah also wants to donate money to several clothing closets and Calvary Children's Homein Powder Springs, which has 20 in its family right now. The nonprofit, which runs solely on donations, tries to provide a home environment for children who have to be taken out of theirs. Executive Director Snyder Turner says there's always a need for more families to open their hearts and homes.

"Families are in trouble and homes are breaking down far too often. So if somebody who does have the ability and the desire, they can say 'I've got room in my life for you,'" Turner said.

"The TV shows, everything you see makes these kids seem all horrible and they're not. They've been through so much in their lives and love does change things," said Daffron, who as she spoke, got a kiss from Hannah on her cheek.

Daffron and her husband legally adopted Hannah. They now have a permanent family of five but have fostered 72 children in the past 10 years.

The Department of Human Services says there are only 29 approved foster homes in Paulding County where the Daffron's live. There are more than 100 children in the county's foster care system right now, more than 8,600 statewide.

To buy a calendar you can visit Benson's Grill or New Seasons Church in Hiram, or California Park in Dallas. You can also send an email to HopeFromHannah2012@yahoo.com.